


the saddest part of my day

by witching



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Crowley is Anxious, Crowley's Plants (Good Omens), Established Relationship, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Gift Giving, Insecurity, M/M, Reunions, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-23
Updated: 2019-07-26
Packaged: 2019-10-14 19:57:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,204
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17515013
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/witching/pseuds/witching
Summary: crowley is preparing to leave on a demonic assignment, and he's very nervous about leaving aziraphale in charge in his absence.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> another prompt from tumblr that got a bit out of control. oh, well.  
> title is a "love, actually" quote because i delight in misery

“Make sure you  _ properly  _ scare them,” Crowley said. His eyes flitted back and forth between Aziraphale and the many house plants in his flat. He rearranged a few pots at random, just to have something to do with his hands.

Aziraphale released a bored sigh, examining his cuticles. “Yes, my dear, I know.”

“You don’t have to yell at them, just play to your strengths.” Crowley brightened, his eyebrows shooting up as an idea occurred to him. “Oh, do that quiet seething thing you do when you’re upset with me. That’ll work wonders.”

“Yes, well, working wonders is sort of what I do.” The angel’s voice was on the edge of a yawn, and it would have to be a purposefully pointed yawn, as he and Crowley both knew his lungs did not need the oxygen intake.

“I’ve got books, tons of books, in the walk-in in the second bedroom, if you wanna look through there a bit, though they’re not exactly up to your standards…” Aziraphale watched as Crowley buzzed around the room, straightening picture frames that were already straight, doing his damnedest to tidy up his spotless apartment, continually jabbering. “Coffee’s in the pantry, and the coffee machine runs itself, all you have to do is put the beans in this end, and the refrigerator is stocked, and there aren’t any dishes, I’m sorry, I know you like to cook.”

“I still have dishes at my place,” Aziraphale said as if pointing out the obvious, because he was. “I’ll be back and forth. And don’t forget,” -- he lifted one hand in a quick, effortless gesture, procuring a mug of hot coffee from thin air -- “I can do that.”

“So you can,” Crowley muttered. He looked at Aziraphale with his brows knitted, his lips pursed. Having been distracted in the middle of a quick descent into panic, he was now unsure of what to do with himself. He floundered, the bubbling in his chest slowing, but not stopping. 

Aziraphale wordlessly handed him the cup of coffee. Crowley took it, cradled it in both hands, reveling in the physical warmth of the drink and the figurative warmth of the angel’s gesture. He inhaled deep, savoring the smell of the coffee -- which, he was now realizing, was not manifested from his own kitchen. The mug he was holding was from Aziraphale’s personal collection, and the coffee was a nutty, cinnamon-infused Spanish blend that he loved. He wondered if the angel knew how much he had needed it, in that moment. Of course. Aziraphale always knew.

“If you have any trouble while I’m gone…” Crowley was thankful that his eyes were hidden, not wanting to imagine his expression, nor the prospect of Aziraphale seeing it. “You know how to get a hold of me, right? You can call anytime you want.”

Aziraphale rolled his eyes. “Yes, Crowley, I have worked out how to use the telephone.”

“I’ll…” Crowley bit his lip and looked at the floor for a long moment, chewing on his words. When he spoke, it was slow and careful, a sudden change from his nervous babbling. “I’ll come back, if you need me.” 

Caught off guard by the sincerity of the statement, Aziraphale simply stared at the demon, his lips slightly parted, and waited for the other shoe to drop. It dropped, a few seconds later, in the form of Crowley’s earnest expression fleeing his face, once again replaced with electric anxious energy. His shoulders squared, he took a quick drink of the coffee in his hands and looked back up at Aziraphale.

“And you better stay close, too, because I need you to pick up if I call,” the demon said, his voice verging on frantic once more. “ _ When _ I call,” he corrected. “I’m going to call.”

Aziraphale placed a soothing hand over Crowley’s, steadying his shaky grip on the coffee cup. He paused for a moment, then thought the better of letting Crowley hold the cup at all, lifted it gently from his hands and placed it on the nearby counter. 

“How many times have we done this before?” Aziraphale’s voice was soft and reassuring. “In all the times I’ve held down the fort here in London while you go out on an assignment, has anything ever gone wrong?” 

Crowley opened his mouth to answer the angel’s rhetorical question, but he was cut off before he started. “Don’t bother,” Aziraphale said, “because the answer is no, it hasn’t.” He cocked his head to the side, furrowing his brow. “Why all the fuss this time?”

“It’s just…” Crowley folded his arms tight across his chest and stared at the floor again. He felt constricted, like he was choking or drowning or on the verge of violent tears. “I don’t know,” he said after a long pause. “It’s been a while since either of us has left, and I -- there’s a lot to worry about.”

Aziraphale looked at him as if he had grown a third arm. Which, all things considered, wouldn’t have been outside the realm of possibility, but it would have been quite strange. “There’s  _ nothing  _ to worry about,” he said emphatically.

“Well, how are you going to remember to eat, if I’m not around?” Crowley fidgeted with the lapel of his jacket, lifting it up, then laying it flat, smoothing it out, lifting it up, rinse and repeat. “Who’s going to stop you from setting things on fire in public?”

Aziraphale stepped forward, slow and purposeful. He placed his hands on Crowley’s arms, his firm, solid touch grounding the demon somewhat. “Crowley,” he said patiently, “I don’t have to remind you that eating is not a necessity. It will be fine. Despite what you may think, I am perfectly capable of taking care of myself.”

Crowley shrugged the angel off, shook his head fiercely, pushed his sunglasses up to the top of his head. “No, I know,” he said, rubbing his eyes and dragging his fingers down his face. “I know. I’m sorry, I know you are.”

Aziraphale raised one eyebrow. Seeing Crowley anxious was not uncommon, but the angel had found that once he got past a certain point, it became nigh impossible to talk him down. He tried for levity. “Are you sure? Because it sounds like you think I’m completely incompetent.”

“No!” Crowley nearly shouted, throwing his hands up defensively. “No, I don’t, I swear. It’s not that at all.”

“Then what is it?” Aziraphale struggled to keep his tone sympathetic rather than accusatory.

Crowley looked at him, and Aziraphale would have sworn he saw the demon’s lip quiver slightly before he intoned miserably, “I don’t know.”

“Listen, Crowley, I don’t want you to have to worry about your flat or your plants or -- or me, while you’re gone.” Aziraphale took a shaky, nervous breath and swallowed hard. “So if there’s anything I can do to… alleviate your anxiety, please tell me.”

Crowley turned away and muttered something incomprehensible even to Aziraphale’s heightened hearing. The demon was slumped over, staring intently at the floor, his muscles tensed. Aziraphale took a step forward, hoping to hear better, and placed a gentle hand on Crowley’s shoulder.

“What did you say, my dear?”

Crowley wheeled back around, looking deep into Aziraphale’s eyes with a terrifying intensity. “Ask me not to go,” he repeated.

Aziraphale stopped breathing. “What?”

“You heard me that time, angel. Ask me not to go.”

“But…” Aziraphale frowned, knitted his brow. “But you’ve got to go,” he stated plainly.

“I  _ know _ ,” Crowley said, “but I don’t want to go. I want to stay.”

“But you’ve… got to go,” the angel said again, struck dumb.

Crowley exhaled a deep sigh. “I’m going to go,” he said. “I just -- I want you… to  _ want  _ me to stay.” He sighed again, avoiding eye contact.

“Oh, Crowley,” Aziraphale whispered, his voice heavy. “Crowley, of  _ course  _ I want you to stay. Is that what all of this has been about?” 

Crowley thought for a moment. “I guess,” he said finally, “sort of.” He looked up at the angel again. "Just -- what if you realize it's better without me around?"

“My dear boy,” Aziraphale murmured, adopting the tone of a mother explaining that there are no monsters under the bed. “If there were a single doubt in my mind that you would return safely, and soon, I would beg you not to go.”

Crowley gnawed at the inside of his cheek, his frown so intense that it was beginning to give him a headache. “It feels different this time. Leaving you.” He rubbed at his eyes aggressively, inhaling sharply. “If you asked me to stay, I would.”

“I know,” Aziraphale said, offering a tender smile. He stepped in closer, taking Crowley’s hands in his own. “But then,” he murmured, “we’d have a whole mess on our hands, with you outright defying orders, and me… well, I suppose encouraging your truancy might count as thwarting, but what small comfort would that be, if it got you in trouble?”

Crowley sniffed, gave a wet chuckle. “You’re making too much sense, angel. Stop convincing me that it’s in both our interests for me to leave.”

“But it is,” Aziraphale said bluntly. “Would that it weren’t so, but such is life.”

Crowley moved closer, until they were breathing the same air, and wrapped his arms around Aziraphale’s neck. He closed his eyes, pressing his forehead to Aziraphale’s and smiling softly. “I’m gonna miss you, angel.”

Aziraphale tilted his head the small amount that was necessary for him to press a quick, chaste kiss to Crowley’s lips. It took all of his self-restraint to pull back after half a second, eliciting a petulant whine from the demon. He buried his face in the crook of Crowley’s neck, inhaling his rich scent, and looped his arms around the demon’s waist, pulled him closer. 

After a moment, Crowley relaxed into the embrace, letting out a contented sigh, and then he both felt and heard Aziraphale whisper a response into his skin.

“I’m going to miss you too, my dear.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> gee peej how come your mom lets you write an unexpected second chapter to a oneshot you wrote six months ago??  
> basically i had two prompts languishing in my inbox and one request for a sequel to this fic, so i combined them all, multitasking, pragmatism, synergy, etc.  
> prompts from tumblr: "it's not like i missed you or anything" and "shut up, i'm a delight"

Aziraphale had always thought Crowley’s methods of caring for his houseplants were a bit harsh, to say the least. He was of the belief that it would be better to treat them with a softer touch, or at least a subtler one; outright threats and intimidation were not quite his style, and he found it unnecessary and frankly rather gauche. 

This was because Aziraphale had never spent much time with the plants. If he had, he would have noticed that they overwhelmingly had troublesome attitudes and a mischievous tilt to their stems, that they were completely averse to rehabilitation, and that really, the only way to keep them in line was by weaponizing fear. Crowley didn’t do it because it was fun. He did it because it was effective.

As it was, Aziraphale watched over the plants while Crowley was gone, and he respected the demon’s technique, even if he didn’t agree with it. Truthfully, although he wished  _ Crowley  _ wouldn’t be so awful to them, Aziraphale thought  _ he  _ had valid justification for threatening the plants, and he didn’t feel at all guilty about it. He did it in his own way, just like Crowley had suggested, and it worked wonders, just like Crowley had said it would.

Watering the plants was his favorite part of the day when Crowley was away, because it gave him something to do and something to talk to, without all the nasty fuss of a conversational partner who might do something irritating, like respond to him or expect him to listen to them. He puttered around the flat just as he would putter around the bookshop, only instead of organizing books, he was tending to plants. It was rather soothing, really.

“Now, listen here,” Aziraphale announced to the room at large, the dozens of plants all standing at attention. “You’ve all been fairly cooperative for me, so far, and I thank you for it, truly. Crowley is coming home this afternoon – oh, hush, he’s no more dangerous than a coconut.” He delicately petted the leaves of a nearby philodendron, soothing its nervous aura, before turning back to smile at the rest of the plants. 

“Anyway, he’s coming home this afternoon, and you will all be on your best behavior,” Aziraphale continued, his tone deceptively sweet. “I know you will all be on your best behavior, because if you aren’t, then Crowley will be upset. And if Crowley is upset, then I will be  _ quite  _ upset.” His tone was harder, his eyes narrowed, and he took a long, menacing pause to let the words sink in. “And I’m sure you don’t want to make me upset.”

The plants didn’t tremble. Aziraphale didn’t like it when they shook in fear, and so they didn’t, not for him. They stood up straighter, they tried to look greener, and they were on their best behavior for Aziraphale as he sat by the window in Crowley’s flat, reading a book and waiting for him to return.

When Crowley did arrive home, he strolled through the door like it was any other day, like he hadn’t been gone for two whole weeks, and nipped straight into the  _ kitchen, _ of all places, throwing a “Hi, angel” over his shoulder. Aziraphale felt a bit indignant at that, if only because his alternative was to feel a bit hurt, and he was not about to sulk because Crowley wasn’t paying attention to him.

“Welcome home,” he muttered with a plausibly deniable amount of snark, shutting his book and setting it aside to join Crowley in the kitchen. He was thinking about perhaps saying something, but that train of thought was quickly derailed because as soon as he stepped into the kitchen, Crowley wheeled around to face him, grinning like a madman and holding his hands behind his back. The demon rocked forward excitedly on the balls of his feet, clearly waiting for Aziraphale to ask what he was up to.

Aziraphale sighed. “What are you up to?”

Crowley’s smile grew somehow even wider, his eyes positively sparkling, as he pulled out whatever he was hiding behind his back and presented it to the angel. “I was going to fix us some drinks first, and maybe wrap this for you,” he said apologetically, “but I can’t wait.”

The item in his hands was a book, unsurprisingly, a marvelously old book. Aziraphale leaned in to get a good look at it, then looked up at Crowley’s face, then back down at the book. Crowley rather helpfully opened it for him to the title page, and Aziraphale had to blink back a few tears in order to read what it said:  _ Candide, ou l’optimisme, traduit de l’allemand de Mr. Le Docteur Ralph. _

“Oh, Crowley, you didn’t,” Aziraphale breathed, frozen by awe and wonder. “You absolutely didn’t, you  _ remarkable  _ thing.”

The demon’s cheeks darkened with the hint of a flush, his giddy grin having faded to a little embarrassed simper. “S’nothing, really,” he mumbled.

Aziraphale laughed out loud, lifted the book from Crowley’s hands and set it on the counter as carefully as if a passing fly could break it, and then he simply  _ jumped  _ on Crowley, knocking into him with so much force and embracing him so tightly that the demon lost his breath. He buried his face in the demon’s hair, inhaling deeply, letting out a delighted hum that almost tilted into moaning territory. When he pulled away, Crowley’s hair was mussed, his face red, his mouth agape, and Aziraphale couldn’t help laughing again.

“It’s  _ everything, _ my darling.” The angel leaned in to drop a kiss on the tip of Crowley’s nose. “So thoughtful, and it must’ve been a nightmare to find, and I will cherish it forever.”

Crowley shifted his weight from one foot to the other, looked down at the floor. “Wasn’t that hard, just thought you’d like it,” he said, in a very poor imitation of nonchalance. "Didn't go out of my way for it."

"Oh, of course, my mistake," Aziraphale replied sardonically. "Surely, you happened to stumble across this three hundred year old book, the market value of which is hovering at around thirty-five thousand pounds, and you just thought I'd like it. That seems highly likely."

Folding his arms across his chest, Crowley paused for a long moment. "You're making it a big deal," he complained. “It really wasn't all that difficult to get. I didn't make any phone calls or meet anyone shady in a parking structure or falsify paperwork to prove my academic credentials, because that would be a silly thing for me to do, all for you. I mean, it's not like I missed you, or anything.”

“You certainly did,” Aziraphale admonished him, rolling his eyes, his voice still dripping with warmth, and then he began to examine his cuticles, feigning disinterest. “I, on the other hand, had such a ball while you were gone that I almost didn’t notice fourteen days, six hours, thirteen minutes, and forty-three seconds pass by. You really should leave the country more often, it’s quite peaceful without you here.”

“Shut up,” Crowley retorted, but he was smiling again, more comfortable with the teasing back-and-forth than any earnest discussion of feelings. “I’m a delight. You’d wither away without my witty rapport to entertain you.”

Aziraphale cracked a smile as well, and the demon took the opportunity to grab his face with both hands and pull him into a kiss. It was clumsy and chaotic, the pressing together of two mouths that couldn’t stop smiling, a perfect little mess of a kiss. Crowley knocked his front teeth into Aziraphale’s by accident and murmured an “Ouch” into his mouth, and that was the breaking point for the angel, who pressed a last quick kiss to the corner of Crowley’s lips before pulling away laughing. 

The fit of giggles lasted about a minute before Aziraphale took a deep breath, wiped a single tear from the corner of his eye, and looked at Crowley with undiluted adoration writ clear upon his face. “I do love you, Crowley,” he murmured, “most terribly.”

“I love you too, angel,” Crowley replied, with more sincerity in his tone than Aziraphale had possibly ever heard before, and then he cocked his head to the side, looking past the angel and into the other room. “What did you do to my plants? They look amazing.”

“I just did what you told me to do,” Aziraphale said, furrowing his brow, “and they behaved well enough. Maybe I’m more intimidating than you are.”

Crowley didn’t argue that point, because he knew the plants would have their say, and because he had more important things to worry about. He turned and began rifling through his cabinets, pulling out bottles and glasses. “How about I get us those drinks, now? And we can sit and talk.”

“That sounds lovely,” Aziraphale nodded, content with dropping the plant issue, certain that he would be able to find other things to tease Crowley about while they talked. In fact, he was beginning to formulate an artful joke about the demon’s fear that Aziraphale would set things on fire in his absence. He smiled to himself and watched Crowley pour the drinks.


End file.
